Ask HN: What are some great projects to gain experience in InfoSec?

11 points by notori ↗ HN
I am taking a course in security, privacy, and distributed systems, and am wondering in case y'all have any suggestions for a research or programing project.

Some options I am considering: * Exploring something with Project Atlas, * Developing with Solidity, * Working on something with the Go Crypto library, * Implementing the Double Ratching Protocol, or * Developing with Monero/Litecoin

5 comments

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What is your goal here? Are you looking to just tinker and learn? Or are you looking for something to slap your name on and give to prospective employers to say "See I worked on this project"?

If you are just tinkering/learning then I would suggest cracking some of the vulnerable vm's over at vulnhub.com

My goal is to produce a project that I can work on for the entire semester. Vulnhub is great, but i think it may be too many tiny pieces... If that makes sense.
When you say crypto do you mean cryptography or cryptocurrencies?

As of today, I'm not sure focusing exclusively on cryptocurrencies will give you much knowledge in security... the majority of the day-to-day security work I've seen related to cryptocurrencies is detecting and turning down crypto miners.

If you're interested in security, I'd personally start with either web/application security, or infrastructure by picking your favorite cloud (AWS, Google, Azure, ...) and learn their security offerings.

That's good to know, thank you! I am looking for something to work on for the entire semester, so the latter may be better suited :)